The Accidental Tourist

fourteen

You would have to say that he was living with her now. He began to spend all his time at her house, to contribute toward her rent and her groceries. He kept his shaving things in her bathroom and squeezed his clothes among the dresses in her closet. But there wasn’t one particular point at which he made the shift. No, this was a matter of day by day. First there was that long Christmas vacation when Alexander was home alone; so why shouldn’t Macon stay on with him once he’d spent the night there? And why not fetch his typewriter and work at the kitchen table? And then why not remain for supper, and after that for bed?

Though if you needed to put a date on it, you might say he truly moved in the afternoon he moved Edward in. He’d just got back from a business trip — an exhausting blitz of five southern cities, not one of which was any warmer than Baltimore — and he stopped by Rose’s house to check the animals. The cat was fine, Rose said. (She had to speak above Edward’s yelps; he was frantic with joy and relief.) The cat had probably not noticed Macon was missing. But Edward, well… “He spends a lot of time sitting in the hall,” she said, “staring at the door. He keeps his head cocked and he waits for you to come back.”

That did it. He brought Edward with him when he returned to Singleton Street.

“What do you think?” he asked Muriel. “Could we keep him just a day or two? See if Alexander can take it, without any shots?”

“I can take it!” Alexander said. “It’s cats that get to me; not dogs.”

Muriel looked doubtful, but she said they could give it a try.

Meanwhile, Edward darted madly all over the house snuffling into corners and under furniture. Then he sat in front of Muriel and grinned up at her. He reminded Macon of a schoolboy with a crush on his teacher; all his fantasies were realized, here he was at last.

For the first few hours they tried to keep him in a separate part of the house, which of course was hopeless. He had to follow Macon wherever he went, and also he developed an immediate interest in Alexander. Lacking a ball, he kept dropping small objects at Alexander’s feet and then stepping back to look expectantly into his face. “He wants to play fetch,” Macon explained. Alexander picked up a matchbook and tossed it, angling his arm behind him in a prissy way. While Edward went tearing after it, Macon made a mental note to buy a ball first thing in the morning and teach Alexander how to throw.

Alexander watched TV and Edward snoozed on the couch beside him, curled like a little blond cashew nut with a squinty, blissful expression on his face. Alexander hugged him and buried his face in Edward’s ruff. “Watch it,” Macon told him. He had no idea what to do if Alexander started wheezing. But Alexander didn’t wheeze. By bedtime he just had a stuffy nose, and he usually had that anyhow.

Macon liked to believe that Alexander didn’t know he and Muriel slept together. “Well, that’s just plain ridiculous,” Muriel said. “Where does he imagine you spend the night — on the living room couch?”

“Maybe,” he said. “I’m sure he has some explanation. Or maybe he doesn’t. All I’m saying is, we shouldn’t hit him in the face with it. Let him think what he wants to think.”

So every morning, Macon rose and dressed before Alexander woke. He started fixing breakfast and then roused him. “Seven o’clock! Time to get up! Go call your mother, will you?” In the past, he learned, Muriel had often stayed in bed while Alexander woke up on his own and got ready for school. Sometimes he left the house while she was still asleep. Macon thought that was shocking. Now he made a full breakfast, and he insisted that Muriel sit at the table with them. Muriel claimed breakfast made her sick to her stomach. Alexander said it made him sick, too, but Macon said that was just too bad. “Ninety-eight percent of all A students eat eggs in the morning,” he said (making it up as he went along). “Ninety-nine percent drink milk.” He untied his apron and sat down. “Are you listening, Alexander?”

“I’ll throw up if I drink milk.”

“That’s all in your head.”

“Tell him, Mama!”

“He throws up,” Muriel said gloomily. She sat hunched at the table in her long silk robe, resting her chin on one hand. “It’s something to do with enzymes,” she said. She yawned. Her hair, growing out of its permanent at last, hung down her back in even ripples like the crimps on a bobby pin.

Alexander walked to school with Buddy and Sissy Ebbetts, two tough-looking older children from across the street. Muriel either went back to bed or dressed and left for one or another of her jobs, depending on what day it was. Then Macon did the breakfast dishes and took Edward out. They didn’t go far; it was much too cold. The few people they encountered walked rapidly, with jerky steps, like characters in a silent film. They knew Macon by sight now and would allow their eyes to flick over his face as they passed — a gesture like a nod — but they didn’t speak. Edward ignored them. Other dogs could come up and sniff him and he wouldn’t even break stride. Mr. Marcusi, unloading crates outside Marcusi’s Grocery, would pause to say, “Well, hey there, stubby. Hey there, tub of lard.” Edward, smugly oblivious, marched on. “Weirdest animal I ever saw,” Mr. Marcusi called after Macon. “Looks like something that was badly drawn.” Macon always laughed.

He was beginning to feel easier here. Singleton Street still unnerved him with its poverty and its ugliness, but it no longer seemed so dangerous. He saw that the hoodlums in front of the Cheery Moments Carry-Out were pathetically young and shabby — their lips chapped, their sparse whiskers ineptly shaved, an uncertain, unformed look around their eyes. He saw that once the men had gone off to work, the women emerged full of good intentions and swept their front walks, picked up the beer cans and potato chip bags, even rolled back their coat sleeves and scrubbed their stoops on the coldest days of the year. Children raced past like so many scraps of paper blowing in the wind — mittens mismatched, noses running — and some woman would brace herself on her broom to call, “You there! I see you! Don’t think I don’t know you’re skipping school!” For this street was always backsliding, Macon saw, always falling behind, but was caught just in time by these women with their carrying voices and their pushy jaws.

Returning to Muriel’s house, he would warm himself with a cup of coffee. He would set his typewriter on the kitchen table and sit down with his notes and brochures. The window next to the table had large, cloudy panes that rattled whenever the wind blew. Something about the rattling sound reminded him of train travel. The airport in Atlanta must have ten miles of corridors, he typed, and then a gust shook the panes and he had an eerie sensation of movement, as if the cracked linoleum floor were skating out from under him.

He would telephone hotels, motels, Departments of Commerce, and his travel agent, arranging future trips. He would note these arrangements in the datebook that Julian gave him every Christmas — a Businessman’s Press product, spiral-bound. In the back were various handy reference charts that he liked to thumb through. The birthstone for January was a garnet; for February, an amethyst. One square mile equaled 2.59 square kilometers. The proper gift for a first anniversary was paper. He would ponder these facts dreamily. It seemed to him that the world was full of equations; that there must be an answer for everything, if only you knew how to set forth the questions.

Then it was lunchtime, and he would put away his work and make himself a sandwich or heat a can of soup, let Edward have a quick run in the tiny backyard. After that he liked to putter around the house a bit. There was so much that needed fixing! And all of it somebody else’s, not his concern, so he could approach it lightheartedly. He whistled while he probed the depth of a crack. He hummed as he toured the basement, shaking his head at the disarray. Upstairs he found a three-legged bureau leaning on a can of tomatoes, and he told Edward, “Scandalous!” in a tone of satisfaction.

It occurred to him — as he oiled a hinge, as he tightened a doorknob — that the house reflected amazingly little of Muriel. She must have lived here six or seven years by now, but still the place had an air of transience. Her belongings seemed hastily placed, superimposed, not really much to do with her. This was a disappointment, for Macon was conscious while he worked of his intense curiosity about her inner workings. Sanding a drawer, he cast a guilty eye upon its contents but found only fringed shawls and yellowed net gloves from the forties — clues to other people’s lives, not hers.

But what was it he wanted to know? She was an open book, would tell him anything — more than he felt comfortable with. Nor did she attempt to hide her true nature, which was certainly far from perfect. It emerged that she had a nasty temper, a shrewish tongue, and a tendency to fall into spells of self-disgust from which no one could rouse her for hours. She was inconsistent with Alexander to the point of pure craziness — one minute overprotective, the next minute callous and offhand. She was obviously intelligent, but she counteracted that with the most global case of superstition Macon had ever witnessed. Hardly a day passed when she didn’t tell him some dream in exhaustive detail and then sift through it for omens. (A dream of white ships on a purple sea came true the very next morning, she claimed, when a door-to-door salesman showed up in a purple sweater patterned with little white boats. “The very same purple! Same shape of ship!” Macon only wondered what kind of salesman would wear such clothing.) She believed in horoscopes and tarot cards and Ouija boards. Her magic number was seventeen. In a previous incarnation she’d been a fashion designer, and she swore she could recall at least one of her deaths. (“We think she’s passed on,” they told the doctor as he entered, and the doctor unwound his muffler.) She was religious in a blurry, nondenominational way and had no doubt whatsoever that God was looking after her personally — ironic, it seemed to Macon, in view of how she’d had to fight for every little thing she wanted.

He knew all this and yet, finding a folded sheet of paper on the counter, he opened it and devoured her lurching scrawl as if she were a stranger. Pretzels. Pantyhose. Dentist, he read. Pick up Mrs. Arnold’s laundry.

No, not that. Not that.

Then it was three o’clock and Alexander was home from school, letting himself in with a key that he wore on a shoelace around his neck. “Macon?” he’d call tentatively. “Is that you out there?” He was scared of burglars. Macon said, “It’s me.” Edward leapt up and went running for his ball. “How was your day?” Macon always asked.

“Oh, okay.”

But Macon had the feeling that school never went very well for Alexander. He came out of it with his face more pinched than ever, his glasses thick with fingerprints. He reminded Macon of a home-work paper that had been erased and rewritten too many times. His clothes, on the other hand, were as neat as when he’d left in the morning. Oh, those clothes! Spotless polo shirts with a restrained brown pinstripe, matching brown trousers gathered bulkily around his waist with a heavy leather belt. Shiny brown shoes. Blinding white socks. Didn’t he ever play? Didn’t kids have recess anymore?

Macon gave him a snack: milk and cookies. (Alexander drank milk in the afternoons without complaint.) Then he helped him with his schoolwork. It was the simplest sort — arithmetic sums and reading questions. “Why did Joe need the dime? Where was Joe’s daddy?”

“Umm…” Alexander said. Blue veins pulsed in his temples.

He was not a stupid child but he was limited, Macon felt. Limited. Even his walk was constricted. Even his smile never dared to venture beyond two invisible boundaries in the center of his face. Not that he was smiling now. He was wrinkling his forehead, raising his eyes fearfully to Macon.

“Take your time,” Macon told him. “There’s no hurry.”

“But I can’t! I don’t know! I don’t know!”

“You remember Joe,” Macon said patiently.

“I don’t think I do!”

Sometimes Macon stuck with it, sometimes he simply dropped it. After all, Alexander had managed without him up till now, hadn’t he? There was a peculiar kind of luxury here: Alexander was not his own child. Macon felt linked to him in all sorts of complicated ways, but not in that inseparable, inevitable way that he’d been linked to Ethan. He could still draw back from Alexander; he could still give up on him. “Oh, well,” he could say, “talk it over with your teacher tomorrow.” And then his thoughts could wander off again.

The difference was, he realized, that he was not held responsible here. It was a great relief to know that.

When Muriel came home she brought fresh air and bustle and excitement. “Is it ever cold! Is it ever windy! Radio says three below zero tonight. Edward, down, this minute. Who wants lemon pie for dessert? Here’s what happened: I had to go shopping for Mrs. Quick. First I had to buy linens for her daughter who’s getting married, then I had to take them back because they were all the wrong color, her daughter didn’t want pastel but white and told her mother plain as day, she said… and then I had to pick up pastries for the bridesmaids’ party and when Mrs. Quick sees the lemon pie she says, ‘Oh, no, not lemon! Not that tacky lemon that always tastes like Kool-Aid!’ I’m like, ‘Mrs. Quick, you don’t have any business telling me what is tacky. This is a fresh-baked, lemon meringue pie without a trace of artificial…’ So anyway, to make a long story short, she said to take it home to my little boy. ‘Well, for your information I’m certain he can’t eat it,’ I say. ‘Chances are he’s allergic.’ But I took it.”

She ranged around the kitchen putting together a supper — BLT’s, usually, and vegetables from a can. Sometimes things were not where she expected (Macon’s doing — he couldn’t resist reorganizing), but she adapted cheerfully. While the bacon sputtered in the skillet she usually phoned her mother and went over all she’d just told Macon and Alexander. “But the daughter wanted white and… ‘oh, not that tacky lemon pie!’ she says…”

If Mrs. Dugan couldn’t come to the phone (which was often the case), Muriel talked to Claire instead. Evidently Claire was having troubles at home. “Tell them!” Muriel counseled her. “Just tell them! Tell them you won’t stand for it.” Cradling the receiver against her shoulder, she opened a drawer and took out knives and forks. “Why should they have to know every little thing you do? It doesn’t matter that you’re not up to anything, Claire. Tell them, ‘I’m seventeen years old and it’s none of your affair anymore if I’m up to anything or not. I’m just about a grown woman,’ tell them.”

But later, if Mrs. Dugan finally came to the phone, Muriel herself sounded like a child. “Ma? What kept you? You can’t say a couple of words to your daughter just because your favorite song is playing on the radio? ‘Lara’s Theme’ is more important than flesh and blood?”

Even after Muriel hung up, she seldom really focused on dinner. Her girlfriend might drop by and stay to watch them eat — a fat young woman named Bernice who worked for the Gas and Electric Company. Or neighbors would knock on the kitchen door and walk right in. “Muriel, do you happen to have a coupon for support hose? Young and slim as you are, I know you wouldn’t need it yourself.” “Muriel, Saturday morning I got to go to the clinic for my teeth, any chance of you giving me a lift?” Muriel was an oddity on this street — a woman with a car of her own — and they knew by heart her elaborate arrangement with the boy who did her repairs. Sundays, when Dominick had the car all day, nobody troubled her; but as soon as Monday rolled around they’d be lining up with their requests. “Doctor wants me to come in and show him my…” “I promised I’d take my kids to the…”

If Muriel couldn’t do it, they never thought to ask Macon instead. Macon was still an outsider; they shot him quick glances but pretended not to notice he was listening. Even Bernice was bashful with him, and she avoided using his name.

By the time the lottery number was announced on TV, everyone would have left. That was what mattered here, Macon had discovered: the television schedule. The news could be missed but the lottery drawing could not; nor could “Evening Magazine” or any of the action shows that followed. Alexander watched these shows but Muriel didn’t, although she claimed to. She sat on the couch in front of the set and talked, or painted her nails, or read some article or other. “Look here! ‘How to Increase Your Bustline.’ ”

“You don’t want to increase your bustline,” Macon told her.

“ ‘Thicker, More Luxurious Eyelashes in Just Sixty Days.’ ”

“You don’t want thicker eyelashes.”

He felt content with everything exactly the way it was. He seemed to be suspended, his life on hold.

And later, taking Edward for his final outing, he liked the feeling of the neighborhood at night. This far downtown the sky was too pale for stars; it was pearly and opaque. The buildings were muffled dark shapes. Faint sounds threaded out of them — music, rifle shots, the whinnying of horses. Macon looked up at Alexander’s window and saw Muriel unfolding a blanket, as delicate and distinct as a silhouette cut from black paper.

One Wednesday there was a heavy snowstorm, starting in the morning and continuing through the day. Snow fell in clumps like white woolen mittens. It wiped out the dirty tatters of snow from earlier storms; it softened the street’s harsh angles and hid the trash cans under cottony domes. Even the women who swept their stoops hourly could not keep pace with it, and toward evening they gave up and went inside. All night the city glowed lilac. It was absolutely silent.

The next morning, Macon woke late. Muriel’s side of the bed was empty, but her radio was still playing. A tired-sounding announcer was reading out cancellations. Schools were closed, factories were closed, Meals on Wheels was not running. Macon was impressed by the number of activities that people had been planning for just this one day — the luncheons and lectures and protest meetings. What energy, what spirit! He felt almost proud, though he hadn’t been going to attend any of these affairs himself.

Then he realized he was hearing voices downstairs. Alexander must be awake, and here he was trapped in Muriel’s bedroom.

He dressed stealthily, making sure the coast was clear before crossing the hall to the bathroom. He tried not to creak the floorboards as he descended the stairs. The living room was unnaturally bright, reflecting the snow outside. The couch was opened, a mass of sheets and blankets; Claire had slept over the last few nights. Macon followed the voices into the kitchen. He found Alexander eating pancakes, Claire at the stove making more, Muriel curled in her usual morning gloom above her coffee cup. Just inside the back door Bernice stood dripping snow, swathed in various enormous plaids. “So anyhow,” Claire was telling Bernice, “Ma says, ‘Claire, who was that boy you drove up with?’ I said, ‘That was no boy, that was Josie Tapp with her new punk haircut,’ and Ma says, ‘Expect me to believe a cock-and-bull story like that!’ So I say, ‘I’ve had enough of this! Grillings! Curfews! Suspicions!’ And I leave and catch a bus down here.”

“They’re just worried you’ll turn out like Muriel did,” Bernice told her.

“But Josie Tapp! I mean God Almighty!”

There was a general shifting motion in Macon’s direction. Claire said, “Hey there, Macon. Want some pancakes?”

“Just a glass of milk, thanks.”

“They’re nice and hot.”

“Macon thinks sugar on an empty stomach causes ulcers,” Muriel said. She wrapped both hands around her cup.

Bernice said, “Well, I’m not saying no,” and she crossed the kitchen to pull out a chair. Her boots left pads of snow with each step. Edward toddled after her, licking them up. “You and me ought to build a snowman,” Bernice told Alexander. “Snow must be four feet deep out there.”

“Have the streets been cleared?” Macon asked.

“Are you kidding?”

“They couldn’t even get through with the newspaper,” Alexander told him. “Edward’s about to lose his mind wondering where it’s got to.”

“And there’s cars abandoned all over the city. Radio says nobody’s going anywhere at all.”

But Bernice had hardly spoken when Edward wheeled toward the back door and started barking. A figure loomed outside. “Who’s that?” Bernice asked.

Muriel tapped her foot at Edward. He lay down but kept on barking, and Macon opened the door. He found himself face to face with his brother Charles — unusually rugged-looking in a visored cap with earflaps. “Charles?” Macon said. “What are you doing here?”

Charles stepped in, bringing with him the fresh, expectant smell of new snow. Edward’s yelps changed to welcoming whines. “I came to pick you up,” Charles said. “Couldn’t reach you on the phone.”

“Pick me up for what?”

“Your neighbor Garner Bolt called and said pipes or something have burst in your house, water all over everything. I’ve been trying to get you since early morning but your line was always busy.”

“That was me,” Claire said, setting down a platter of pancakes. “I took the receiver off the hook so my folks wouldn’t call me up and nag me.”

“This is Muriel’s sister, Claire,” Macon said, “and that’s Alexander and that’s Bernice Tilghman. My brother Charles.”

Charles looked confused.

Come to think of it, this wasn’t an easy group to sort out. Claire was her usual mingled self — rosebud bathrobe over faded jeans, fringed moccasin boots that laced to her knees. Bernice could have been a lumberjack. Alexander was neat and polished, while Muriel in her slinky silk robe was barely decent. Also, the kitchen was so small that there seemed to be more people than there actually were. And Claire was waving her spatula, spangling the air with drops of grease. “Pancakes?” she asked Charles. “Orange juice? Coffee?”

“No, thank you,” Charles said. “I really have to be—”

“I bet you want milk,” Muriel said. She got to her feet, fortunately remembering to clutch her robe together. “I bet you don’t want sugar on an empty stomach.”

“No, really I—”

“It won’t be any trouble!” She was taking the carton from the refrigerator. “How’d you get here, anyways?”

“I drove.”

“I thought the streets were blocked.”

“They weren’t so bad,” Charles said, accepting a glass of milk. “Finding the place was the hard part.” He told Macon, “I looked it up on the map but evidently I was mizzled.”

“Mizzled?” Muriel asked.

“He was misled,” Macon explained. “What did Garner say, exactly, Charles?”

“He said he saw water running down the inside of your living room window. He looked in and saw the ceiling dripping. Could have been that way for weeks, he said; you know that cold spell we had over Christmas.”

“Doesn’t sound good,” Macon said.

He went to the closet for his coat. When he came back, Muriel was saying, “Now that you don’t have an empty stomach, Charles, won’t you try some of Claire’s pancakes?”

“I’ve had a half a dozen,” Bernice told him. “They don’t call me Big-Ass Bernice for nothing.”

Charles said, “Uh, well—” and gave Macon a helpless look.

“We have to be going,” Macon told the others. “Charles, are you parked in back?”

“No, in front. Then I went around back because I couldn’t get the doorbell to work.”

There was a reserved, disapproving note in Charles’s voice when he said this, but Macon just said airily, “Oh, yes! Place is a wreck.” He led the way toward the front of the house. He felt like someone demonstrating how well he got on with the natives.

They pushed open the door with some difficulty and floundered down steps so deeply buried that both men more or less fell the length of them, trusting that they would be cushioned. The sunlight sparked and flashed. They waded toward the street, Macon’s shoes quickly filling with snow — a refreshing sharpness that almost instantly turned painful.

“I guess we’d better take both cars,” he told Charles.

“How come?”

“Well, you don’t want to have to drive all the way back down here.”

“But if we take just one, then one of us can drive and one can push if we get stuck.”

“Let’s take mine, then.”

“But mine’s already cleared and dug out.”

“But with mine I could drop you off home and save you the trip back down.”

“But that leaves my car stranded on Singleton Street.”

“We could get it to you after they plow.”

“And my car has its engine warmed!” Charles said.

Was this how they had sounded, all these years? Macon gave a short laugh, but Charles waited intently for his answer. “Fine, we’ll take yours,” Macon told him. They climbed into Charles’s VW.

It was true there were a lot of abandoned cars. They sat in no particular pattern, featureless white mounds turned this way and that, so the street resembled a river of drifting boats. Charles dodged expertly between them. He kept a slow, steady speed and talked about Rose’s wedding. “We told her April was too iffy. Better wait, we told her, if she’s so set on an outdoor service. But Rose said no, she’ll take her chances. She’s sure the weather will be perfect.”

A snow-covered jeep in front of them, the only moving vehicle they’d yet encountered, suddenly slurred to one side. Charles passed it smoothly in a long, shallow arc. Macon said, “Where will they live, anyhow?”

“Why, at Julian’s, I suppose.”

“In a singles building?”

“No, he’s got another place now, an apartment near the Belvedere.”

“I see,” Macon said. But he had trouble picturing Rose in an apartment — or anywhere, for that matter, if it wasn’t her grandparents’ house with its egg-and-dart moldings and heavily draped windows.

All through the city people were digging out — tunneling toward their parked cars, scraping off their windshields, shoveling sidewalks. There was something holidaylike about them; they waved to each other and called back and forth. One man, having cleared not only his walk but a section of the street as well, was doing a little soft-shoe dance on the wet concrete, and when Charles and Macon drove through he stopped to shout, “What are you, crazy? Traveling around in this?”

“I must say you’re remarkably calm in view of the situation,” Charles told Macon.

“What situation?”

“Your house, I mean. Water pouring through the ceiling for who knows how long.”

“Oh, that,” Macon said. Yes, at one time he’d have been very upset about that.

By now they were high on North Charles Street, which the plows had already cleared. Macon was struck by the spaciousness here — the buildings set far apart, wide lawns sloping between them. He had never noticed that before. He sat forward to gaze at the side streets. They were still completely white. And just a few blocks over, when Charles turned into Macon’s neighborhood, they saw a young girl on skis.

His house looked the same as ever, though slightly dingy in comparison with the snow. They sat in the car a moment studying it, and then Macon said, “Well, here goes, I guess,” and they climbed out. They could see where Garner Bolt had waded through the yard; they saw the scalloping of footprints where he’d stepped closer to peer in a window. But the sidewalk bore no tracks at all, and Macon found it difficult in his smooth-soled shoes.

The instant he unlocked the door, they heard the water. The living room was filled with a cool, steady, dripping sound, like a greenhouse after the plants have been sprayed. Charles, who was the first to enter, said, “Oh, my God.” Macon stopped dead in the hallway behind him.

Apparently an upstairs pipe (in that cold little bathroom off Ethan’s old room, Macon would bet) had frozen and burst, heaven only knew how long ago, and the water had run and run until it saturated the ceiling and started coming through the plaster. All over the room it was raining. Chunks of plaster had fallen on the furniture, turning it white and splotchy. The floorboards were mottled. The rug, when Macon stepped on it, squelched beneath his feet. He marveled at the thoroughness of the destruction; not a detail had been overlooked. Every ashtray was full of wet flakes and every magazine was sodden. There was a gray smell rising from the upholstery.

“What are you going to do?” Charles breathed.

Macon pulled himself together. “Why, turn off the water main, of course,” he said.

“But your living room!”

Macon didn’t answer. His living room was… appropriate, was what he wanted to say. Even more appropriate if it had been washed away entirely. (He imagined the house under twelve feet of water, uncannily clear, like a castle at the bottom of a goldfish bowl.)

He went down to the basement and shut off the valve, and then he checked the laundry sink. It was dry. Ordinarily he let the tap run all winter long, a slender stream to keep the pipes from freezing, but this year he hadn’t thought of it and neither had his brothers, evidently, when they came to light the furnace.

“Oh, this is terrible, just terrible,” Charles was saying when Macon came back upstairs. But he was in the kitchen now, where there wasn’t any problem. He was opening and shutting cabinet doors. “Terrible. Terrible.”

Macon had no idea what he was going on about. He said, “Just let me find my boots and we can leave.”

“Leave?”

He thought his boots must be in his closet. He went upstairs to the bedroom. Everything here was so dreary — the naked mattress with its body bag, the dusty mirror, the brittle yellow newspaper folded on the nightstand. He bent to root through the objects on the closet floor. There were his boots, all right, along with some wire hangers and a little booklet of some sort. A Gardener’s Diary, 1976. He flipped through it. First lawn-mowing of the spring, Sarah had written in her compact script. Forsythia still in bloom. Macon closed the diary and smoothed the cover and laid it aside.

Boots in hand, he went back downstairs. Charles had returned to the living room; he was wringing out cushions. “Never mind those,” Macon said. “They’ll just get wet again.”

“Will your insurance cover this?”

“I suppose so.”

“What would they call it? Flood damage? Weather damage?”

“I don’t know. Let’s get going.”

“You should phone our contractor, Macon. Remember the man who took care of our porch?”

“Nobody lives here anyhow,” Macon said.

Charles straightened, still holding a cushion. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.

“Mean?”

“Are you saying you’ll just let this stay?”

“Probably,” Macon told him.

“All soaked and ruined? Nothing done?”

“Oh, well,” Macon said, waving a hand. “Come along, Charles.”

But Charles hung back, still gazing around the living room. “Terrible. Even the curtains are dripping. Sarah will feel just terrible.”

“I doubt she’ll give it a thought,” Macon said.

He paused on the porch to pull his boots on. They were old and stiff, the kind with metal clasps. He tucked his wet trouser cuffs inside them and then led the way to the street.

Once they were settled in the car, Charles didn’t start the engine but sat there, key in hand, and looked soberly at Macon. “I think it’s time we had a talk,” he said.

“What about?”

“I’d like to know what you think you’re up to with this Muriel person.”

“Is that what you call her? ‘This Muriel person’?”

“No one else will tell you,” Charles said. “They say it’s none of their business. But I can’t just stand by and watch, Macon. I have to say what I think. How old are you — forty-two? Forty-three now? And she is… but more than that, she’s not your type of woman.”

“You don’t even know her!”

“I know her type.”

“I have to be getting home now, Charles.”

Charles looked down at his key. Then he started the car and pulled into the street, but he didn’t drop the subject. “She’s some kind of symptom, Macon! You’re not yourself these days and this Muriel person’s a symptom. Everybody says so.”

“I’m more myself than I’ve been my whole life long,” Macon told him.

“What kind of remark is that? It doesn’t even make sense!”

“And who is ‘everybody,’ anyway?”

“Why, Porter, Rose, me…”

“All such experts.”

“We’re just worried for you, Macon.”

“Could we switch to some other topic?”

“I had to tell you what I thought,” Charles said.

“Well, fine. You’ve told me.”

But Charles didn’t look satisfied.

The car wallowed back through the slush, with ribbons of bright water trickling down the windshield from the roof. Then out on the main road, it picked up speed. “Hate to think what all that salt is doing to your underbody,” Macon said.

Charles said, “I never told you this before, but it’s my opinion sex is overrated.”

Macon looked at him.

“Oh, when I was in my teens I was as interested as anyone,” Charles said. “I mean it occupied my thoughts for every waking moment and all that. But that was just the idea of sex, you know? Somehow, the real thing was less. I don’t mean I’m opposed to it, but it’s just not all I expected. For one thing, it’s rather messy. And then the weather is such a problem.”

“Weather,” Macon said.

“When it’s cold you hate to take your clothes off. When it’s hot you’re both so sticky. And in Baltimore, it does always seem to be either too cold or too hot.”

“Maybe you ought to consider a change of climate,” Macon said. He was beginning to enjoy himself. “Do you suppose anyone’s done a survey? City by city? Maybe the Businessman’s Press could put out some sort of pamphlet.”

“And besides it often leads to children,” Charles said. “I never really cared much for children. They strike me as disruptive.”

“Well, if that’s why you brought this up, forget it,” Macon said. “Muriel can’t have any more.”

Charles gave a little cough. “That’s good to hear,” he said, “but it’s not why I brought it up. I believe what I was trying to say is, I just don’t think sex is important enough to ruin your life for.”

“So? Who’s ruining his life?”

“Macon, face it. She’s not worth it.”

“How can you possibly know that?”

“Can you tell me one unique thing about her?” Charles asked. “I mean one really special quality, Macon, not something sloppy like ‘She appreciates me’ or ‘She listens…’ ”

She looks out hospital windows and imagines how the Martians would see us, Macon wanted to say. But Charles wouldn’t understand that, so instead he said, “I’m not such a bargain myself, in case you haven’t noticed. I’m kind of, you could say, damaged merchandise. Somebody ought to warn her away from me, when you get right down to it.”

“That’s not true. That’s not true at all. As a matter of fact, I imagine her people are congratulating her on her catch.”

“Her catch!”

“Someone to support her. Anyone,” Charles said. “She’d be lucky to find anyone. Why, she doesn’t even speak proper English! She lives in that slummy house, she dresses like some kind of bag lady, she’s got that little boy who appears to have hookworm or something—”

“Charles, just shut the hell up,” Macon said.

Charles closed his mouth.

They had reached Muriel’s neighborhood by now. They were driving past the stationery factory with its tangled wire fence like old bedsprings. Charles took a wrong turn. “Let’s see, now,” he said, “where do I…”

Macon didn’t offer to help.

“Am I heading in the right direction? Or not. Somehow I don’t seem to…”

They were two short blocks from Singleton Street, but Macon hoped Charles would drive in circles forever. “Lots of luck,” he said, and he opened the door and hopped out.

“Macon?”

Macon waved and ducked down an alley.

Freedom! Sunlight glinting off blinding white drifts, and children riding sleds and TV trays. Cleared parking spaces guarded with lawn chairs. Throngs of hopeful boys with shovels. And then Muriel’s house with its walk still deep in snow, its small rooms smelling of pancakes, its cozy mix of women lounging about in the kitchen. They were drinking cocoa now. Bernice was braiding Claire’s hair. Alexander was painting a picture. Muriel kissed Macon hello and squealed at his cold cheeks. “Come in and get warm! Have some cocoa! Look at Alexander’s picture,” she said. “Don’t you love it? Isn’t he something? He’s a regular da Vinci.”

“Leonardo,” Macon said.

“What?”

“Not da Vinci. For God’s sake. It’s Leonardo,” he told her. Then he stamped upstairs to change out of his clammy trousers.